The Last Reporter
When the newspaper folded, the pressroom went silent except for the moths batting their wings against old fluorescent lights.
The last reporter, hair like unraveling typewriter ribbon, stayed until the eviction notice.
They taxidermied her for the county museum, wedged between the steam engine and the butter churn, clutching her notebook, pen poised mid-question: Who benefits? Who loses?
Schoolchildren pass by and ask if she was real.
Their teacher says, “She was what we used to call accountability.”
In the corner, a television plays a news channel without news, only weather, celebrity divorces, and soft-focus segments on zucchini festivals.
Outside, the mayor announces the town is doing better than ever.
There is no one left to ask, “According to whom?”